Published: February 04, 2006 01:59 pm            

City explains water woes

Dear Editor,

TO THE CITIZENS OF PAULS VALLEY:

As most of you are aware from notices previously sent to the City’s water customers, Pauls Valley is currently under a Consent Order from the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality due to unacceptable levels of water contaminants.

As we have stated in previous notices, the presence of these contaminants is not new, but water quality regulations were recently made stricter thereby causing the City’s water supply and system to no longer meet certain minimum requirements.

Due to the age of the current facility as well as increased water demands, long before the Consent Order was issued or the regulations changed, City officials began planning a new water treatment facility.

The “long-range plan” which was realized soon after the construction of Lake Longmire, was put into action more than five years ago with the commencement of studies as to the best type of plant for the City, means of financing, engineering studies, etc.

The City now has a water treatment facility plan ready to proceed on all levels.

The new plant will solve the water quality issues which have been addressed by the notices, as well as produce superior quality water at a greatly increased capacity for the City for decades to come.

The City is poised to proceed with obtaining the financing for the new plant, bidding the project, and proceeding with construction.

However, the final implementation is on hold until resolution of issues regarding sales of water to Rural Water District No. 4 (RWD #4).

RWD #4 is an entity created many years ago to provide water to rural areas.

Over the decades, however, the City’s corporate limits have grown and many areas which were originally not within the corporate limits have been annexed into the corporate limits.

Currently, the major areas within the City’s corporate limits that fall within RWD #4 include all customers on each side of Highway 19 west of the Rush Creek levy to beyond I-35; and the Tanglewood, Crown Point, and Wildwood subdivisions.

For many years, the City has believed that it should provide City services, including water services, to those areas within its corporate limits through a consolidation with RWD #4.

Among many important reasons for the City’s position, such as being able to provide incentives to industrial prospects and the coordination of utility billing and collections, perhaps the most compelling reason for desiring a consolidation of the two entities is the simple fact that the City can provide everyone cheaper water through such a consolidation.

The efficiencies and economies afforded by larger water production and delivery can be passed on to the customers.

Economic sense, along with other considerations which a municipality has, but which a rural water district does not, greatly argue in favor of attempting to combine the resources of these two currently-separate entities.

This is particularly true in light of the fact that all water provided by RWD #4 to its customers is water produced by the City and sold to RWD #4.

The City had the long-term vision to build Lake Longmire to provide a superior raw water source.

Even with this excellent raw water source, however, the ability of the City to produce water has been very limited by the age and capacity of the current water plant.

The City’s plan is to build a water plant which will not only address the water quality issues (as required by the DEQ), but will also be of sufficient capacity to serve all its citizens, including those in RWD #4 as it has been doing for decades, and to grow as the City’s customers’ demands for water grow in decades to come.

To realize this plan, the City believes it is imperative to consolidate water service for part, if not all of the customers within the City’s corporate limits which are currently being served by RWD #4.

Approximately eight years ago, the City made the following proposal to the Board of RWD #4: the City would contract with RWD #4 to provide water service directly to ALL of RWD #4’s customers, even those outside the City limits.

The City would hire RWD #4 employees and would assume responsibility for the maintenance and upkeep of the District’s water distribution system.

The immediate effect at that time to District customers within the City limits would have been a decrease in water rates for a user of 7,000 gallons of water per month from $21.00 under RWD #4’s rates to $17.00 under the City’s rates.

There would have been NO change with respect to the quality or quantity of water provided the District’s customers since the water provided then (and provided now) to those customers is the City’s water.

The same water, through the same lines, would be delivered to the same customers. The only change would be that the water rates to those in the RWD #4 would decrease.

Although the decrease in water prices alone is arguably sufficient compensation to the District or reason enough to accept the proposal, to address the District’s Boards argument that RWD #4 had a significant investment in its water distribution lines, the City proposed to further decrease water rates to customers within the District to a rate 10 percent below the rates paid by the remainder of the City’s customers for a period of three years.

After the 3-year period, customers within the corporate limits would all pay the same rates (within their residential or commercial classifications), and those District members outside the City limits would be guaranteed that their rates would never be more than 10 percent higher than customers within the City limits.

This offer was rejected by the Board of RWD #4.

Since that time, the City and the District have been in varying stages of negotiation for an acceptable water contract.

The City has aggressively pursued attempting to reach an agreement with RWD #4 since the beginning of 2005. To date, no agreement has been reached.

The latest proposal to RWD #4 contains a three-year phased-in consolidation of existing residential customers and new residential and commercial customers within the corporate limits of Pauls Valley and any future annexations.

It does not propose a consolidation of RWD’s existing commercial customers.

Negotiations on this aspect appear to have reached an impasse.

At the present time, the City has no intention of attempting to sell water to the District’s existing customers without the District’s consent.

However, because the City considers the consolidation as described above so important for its citizens, and because the size or capacity of the water plant to be built will be dictated directly by whether the City will have the economies of scale afforded by the larger retail (as opposed to wholesale) customer base, the City is compelled to choose between two alternatives.

If the City can reach an agreement with RWD #4 for at least a partial consolidation as outlined, it will build a water plant based on those revenues and for that capacity.

If an agreement cannot be reached, the City will accept the fact that it can no longer sell water to RWD #4 and proceed with the water plant without reliance on the revenues from that part of the City limits.

If the latter course is taken, it will significantly increase water rates for the remainder of the corporate limits due to the City’s inability to pledge those revenues toward financing.

The City wants to provide cheaper water to all of its citizens, not just those outside RWD #4.

However, the City must be able to control its own destiny with respect to its citizens and its growth.

This information is given both as an explanation of the issues involved in determining which course to take with respect to a very large investment of the citizens’ money in the water treatment facility, and also as an explanation and notice of a possible significant change in water revenues which may directly impact future water rates.

Since these issues potentially greatly impact all the citizens of Pauls Valley, the City will hold a public meeting in the near future to address any further questions or concerns which any citizen may have regarding this matter. The time and place of the meeting will be announced soon.

Pauls Valley City Council Members and Pauls Valley Municipal Authority Trustees

        

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